Bahamas WOW

“Why have we not spent more time here?” is the question I keep asking myself. Many of us have been to Nassau on a cruise or stayed at an exclusive resort or seen a photo of a pink beach or swimming pig and thought “this is the Bahamas” but it’s much much more.

The facts are easy enough; 12 primary islands with various population densities, airports, stores, car rentals, resorts, terrific restaurants and modern conveniences. These larger islands are 10-40 miles apart from each other so you can easily charter a boat or take a shuttle and get to another large island in just a few hours.

We’re talking about a country that gladly takes United States currency, primarily/exclusively speaks English, has exceptional Cell Phone coverage, Internet access and is located just 50 miles from Miami, Florida. I don’t think you could design an island paradise more convenient to the United States! The weather’s pretty good too! We’ve been living under blue skies and 70-78 degree weather for the last 6 weeks. Average temperature in April is around 74F.

If you’re looking for more adventure, there’s 700+ islands, inlets and cays that are partially populated or contain no humans whatsoever. In fact, there’s more than 180,000 square miles of shallow, sandy ocean available to you and the wildlife that lives there. This is fantastic for boaters as it means we’re never more than an hour or two from a protected, sandy anchorage.

We visited quite a few of these remote locations but we found we prefer to be closer to people. In fact, the lightly populated islands appeals to us the most. These are sometimes called family islands and the hospitality is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Small, family-owned restaurants are scattered across these smaller islands and they’re openly welcoming and friendly. The owners are always there and often fill the role of chef.

Some of these places are actually inside houses and they’re happy to show you how they prepare the food.

On Blackpoint, we wanted to get some of “grandmas” coconut bread so we knocked on the door and she invited us into her kitchen to choose the loaf we wanted.

If you want to see nature, they have that covered too. Locals are there to take you out to dive locations, caves, blue holes or wherever you want. If you already have a boat, you can just meet them and they’ll “call” the turtles, the sharks or the stingrays. We’re not even kidding; they’ve been feeding these wild animals so long that they’ve learned their distinctive calls.

This kind of relationship with nature means you can simply walk into the water to see or even pet wild animals.

Turtles are a little more shy so you’ll need some food for them.

I think our favorite place so far has been Chat N Chill near Georgetown on the Great Exuma island. Order a conch salad and ask to keep the scraps. Walk past the pile of conch shells with your scraps and stingrays swim right up to you.

Chat N Chill is a great place to hang out, grab some food and drinks and meet locals and other visitors. They have a pig roast every Sunday and the place gets pretty wild. Sunday afternoon, the water got pretty dangerous with the wild boat activity FAR TOO CLOSE to shore!

In the end, it’s the people you meet that make it special I think. We drank with a large group of rowdy folks from North Carolina but there’s common ground wherever you look. We did hang out with quite a few other cruisers which makes sense as we share similar interests (and problems) so it takes little effort to bond with them as you explore an island or region.

Of course if nature or isolation is your thing, you could never see it all in the Bahamas. We found some terrific blue holes but there’s over 150 documented holes above and below the water line. There’s also countless blowholes, caves, natural baths and geological sites.

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We will continue to work our way south in May but we still have a few weeks to explore these islands and I wanted to capture some of our experiences before we left. If you’re looking for an island paradise that’s close to home, the Bahamas are an often overlooked gem.